“A Better Deal”… For Whom?

Centrist Democrats keep cutting off the Progressive side of their Party, and then whimpering when they lose. As if becoming white-right lite is going to make them competitive in a race where they have lost their key majorities.

 

Winning the War With ISIS

One of the reasons Republicans avoid the issue of what to do against ISIS – other than to sabre rattle for the easily mislead low intelligence base, and Democrats have a hard time enunciating a strategy is that the only way to actually end the ISIS threat involves a number of politically unpalatable choices. And I don’t mean toesies on the ground type stupid.

ISIS, like Al Qaeda is a creation of the wahabi sect. Said sect is financially supported and provided cover throughout the Middle East by (gasp) our “friend and ally” Saudi Arabia.

There are two basic ways to end Middle East Terrorism:

1. Go “Medieval”
2. Destroy the engine driving the creation of new terrorists.

#1 is executed by raising the level of terror, regardless of civilian casualties to the level nobody in the Middle East will ever want to consider attacking the West again. Red Army/Roman obliteration of enough folks, everyone else is too busy hiding under a rock to cause any more trouble. Think WWII and Dresden or Hiroshima type destruction. Make it clear that in any further terrorist attack the home cities, or cities in which they trained will be leveled. It may take Hitler/Stalin level carnage to get the message through.

#2 is to go after the source. Ergo, pick a Holy Day, and declare a drone free day simultaneously bombing each and every Mosque and Madrassa in the Middle East where Wahabi Witch Doctors spew their hate. Within 24 hrs, completely shut down all Saudi (and Turkey) international holdings, whether gold, property, or money, and deport all Saudi Citizens from the US (and Europe). Cut the entire financial string. Seize all ships, businesses, and other assets. Pick the hometowns of the current ISIS and Al Qaeda Leaders, Send a few dozen B-52’s and obliterate it – whether they are there or not. Declare null and void all treaties, toss Turkey out of NATO, and declare them Pariah States until such time as the Governments take substantive action to end the support of, and financing the proselytization of Wahhabism worldwide, and material or other support for ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Of course such will likely cause the collapse of the tottering House of Saud…And possibly an internal revolution in Turkey. Let them fight each other, with the understanding that should the fundamentalist crazies win – the only thing they have done is to provide hard targets.

And lastly…Learn to live with ourselves afterward.

 

How ISIS pacifies an area

Paris Attack Shows Why Al Qaeda Might Have Been Right About ISIS All Along

At this point, there are important components to events which are not clear: Were the plans for the downing of the Russian airliner in Sinai, last week’smultiple suicide attacks in Beirut and the bombings in Paris, conceived within the Islamic State leadership and the operations executed according to the wishes and directions of the ISIS leadership in Raqqa or Mosul?

President François Hollande implied a connection to Raqqa, but gives no evidence. But if this indeed is so, and let us presume it is, it signals a major shift in strategy by ISIS. The consequences imply that the West may no longer be able to fend off acknowledging the Wahhabist origins of movements such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, nor ignore their umbilical connection to Saudi Arabia, which has succored them — even as the House of Saud now fears that its monstrous progeny is intent on “cleansing”Arabia of the Al Saud themselves, and returning it the pristine Wahhabism on which Saudi Arabia originally was founded — the “one, true Islam” that ISIS insists upon.

In the wake of 9/11, the fact that 15 of the 19 attackers were Saudi citizens was airbrushed out from the landscape in favor of claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction — which Washington wished the world would focus on more. It will not be so easy to ignore the historic dimension now.

America may have to take a deep breath and fundamentally reconsider the nature of its alliances with the likes of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which both openly proclaimedtheir intent, in Syria today, to go on aiding the gamut of these Caliphate forces (ISIS, Al Qaeda and Ahrar al-Sham). Recall that ordinary Syrians have been living Paris’ Friday terror on a daily basis, for five years now. It is hard to see how the West can continue its ambiguous game of footsie with such forces, in the wake of what may have happened in Sinai, in Beirut and Paris.

So, what can have prompted this major strategic shift by ISIS? Well, there has always been one major point of dissent between Al Qaeda and ISIS: Al Qaeda’s leadership hassaid, openly, that it believes that ISIS had erred by proclaiming the Caliphate, the Islamic State. The ISIS proclamation was premature and the conditions were not propitious, Al Qaeda’s leaders stated.

Al Qaeda military operations focus on the “vexation and exhaustion” of America and its Western allies, which would eventually lead to an overextension of Western forces in many ways: morally, militarily, politically and economically. A reflection of this different approach to ISIS has been Al Qaeda’s willingness to work and cooperate with other insurgent forces in Syria; whereas ISIS rejects cooperation, demanding instead absolute allegiance and obedience.

ISIS opted for the absolute: an all out push to establish God’s “Principality” (a Caliphate), here and now, on physical territory, with borders, administration, Sharia law and a system of justice. The big difference between the two movements in effect, is “territoriality.” Al Qaeda is global, ephemeral and virtual, whereas ISIS is territorial.

But what if ISIS fears to lose this territoriality? Strange things are happening in Syria. Villages that have been held by ISIS for two years are falling to government forces in hours. Everywhere small gains are being made by the Syrian army or its allies, across contested areas. It is too early to say that ISIS is collapsing — but a part of it may be.

And if ISIS begins to lose its distinguishing feature — that it is a territorial power in Syria and Iraq — then perhaps its leadership might conclude that Ayman al-Zawahiri was right: Al Qaeda was right, and ISIS, if it faces losing its territoriality, must adopt Al Qaeda strategies (Al Qaeda has already called for a united stand with ISIS against the Russian and Iranian interventions in Syria).

But what, on the other hand, if this is not a strategic decision by the ISIS leadership, but rather that the bomb on the Russian aircraft and the suicide bombings in Beirut and Paris were spontaneous, copycat attacks by local elements and not conceived, ordered and operationally initiated in Raqqa or Mosul?

In this case, Europe has a different problem — but one no less serious. In some ways, the public evidence does not lean towards a Raqqa-led initiative. It leans the other way. From what we know to date, all of those involved in the Paris attacks were European citizens. In short, it was a case of European on European war. It is not clear that any of the perpetrators were returnees from the conflict in Syria (the authenticity of the Syrian passport found at the scene has been questioned).

And if there was no direct order from the ISIS command, there is prima facie in Europe, a shadow Al Qaeda-like structure taking shape: the attacks in Paris were well-planned, prepared and executed. The claims of responsibility are not definitive: there have been examples where Islamic leaderships have accepted responsibility andclaimed an attack even when they did not order it — and whereby claiming it, severely damaged the movement.

Robert Fisk has noted:

Omar Ismail Mostafai, one of the suicide killers in Paris, was of Algerian origin — and so, too, may be other named suspects. Said and Cherif Kouachi, the brothers who murdered the Charlie Hebdo journalists, were also of Algerian parentage. They came from the five million-plus Algerian community in France, for many of whom the Algerian war never ended, and who live today in the slums of Saint-Denis and other Algerian banlieues of Paris.

If this is so then not just France, but other European states, too, will need to take a deep breath and wonder how their policies have metamorphosed, from ostensible multiculturalism, into a “soft apartheid” in which Europe’s Muslim citizens feel the discrimination and contempt of many of their fellow citizens… Read the rest here…

 

 

What role for the Black Church?

Historically the Black Church has been instrumental in advocating and advancing Civil Rights, and was central to organizing the protests and coalescing the voice of black people into actionable agendas.

MLK speaking before Ebenezer Baptist’s Congregation

The question today is, with the fundamental changes within the Black Church, is it possible anymore that the Church may regain it’s mantle as a central platform for the battle for Civil Rights?

Arguing against that is the reality that the Black Church in many places isn’t fully tied to it’s geographic community. As black folks have moved out of Urban areas to the burbs, the communities they have left behind, largely become “Commuter Communities”. Ergo, the expats drive to the old black community for services, whether it is a barbershop or beauty salon, or still maintain an allegiance to the old Church. They likely maintain friendships, or have relatives living in the old community. However, the issues with being black in America’s suburbs, and in the inner city are likely to be quite different.

Second is the fractionation of the community by the very Church which should be bringing it back together. Male participation in the Black Church has dropped to historic lows. Part of that has to do with personality cultism on the part of some male Preachers, part has to do with the belief the church really isn’t interested in the problems of black males, whether that perception is fair or not. An interesting analysis was published last year in the Atlanta Black Star – 6 Reasons Young Black People Are Leaving The Church.

Summed by Tony Carter who serves as the Lead Pastor of East Point Church in East Point, Georgia.The article suggest the rise in economic opportunities and social progress is making the church irrelevant. Secondly, in an ever-changing digital age, the church appears stagnant, old fashioned, and unattractive. Thirdly, today’s educated black man and woman have less use for faith in an enlightened age where reason and science answer most of their questions. Fourthly, there is a growing discontent among this generation of blacks with biblical passages that seemingly tolerate or advocate for such social ills as slavery and genocide. Fifthly, the church comes off as intolerant, judgmental, and simplistic when it comes to issues of sexual activity, sexual orientation, and living holy in a sexually free society. Lastly, the article suggested that this generation seeks authenticity whereas the black church today gives the impression that everyone has it all together. In other words, black millennials want to stop pretending.

I believe there is another reason. Far too many black churches have adopted a policy of exclusionism, requiring their parishioners to marry or date only people who believe as they do. That just isn’t a formula for long term success. -especially in a society where only about 42% of black women will ever marry.

Black Churches Led The Civil Rights Movement. Can They Do It Again In Baltimore?

…Many of today’s black pastors, some young activists argue, have moved away from the black church’s traditional role as a center for African-American mobilization. “Today, what we see is churches being appendages of the kind of status-quo body politic,” said Dayvon Love, 28, director of public policy at the Baltimore think tank and activist group Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle. “This has happened generally post-integration, post-civil rights. You have cadres of individual back people who get positioned in white-dominated institutions, and their presence is used as a way to deflect from structural change.”

It sounds like a radical critique, but senior clergy have similar concerns. “If you are a church that’s never in ‘good’ trouble with the powers, then you’re probably in bed with the powers,” the Rev. Raphael Warnock, who holds Martin Luther King Jr.’s former pulpit at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church,told NPR recently. “We’re doing precious little to actually dismantle the American prison-industrial complex, which is the new Jim Crow.”

To be sure, the protest tradition is alive and kicking in some Baltimore churches. Just last month, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, pastor of Empowerment Temple, led a group that briefly shut down a major highway into the city during the morning rush hour to denounce plans for a new juvenile jail.

And the Rev. Ron Owens, a former pastor who organized the Freddie Gray funeral, bristles at the notion that local clergy have been co-opted by the powers that be.

The same group of pastors who led the funeral and the march through the riot were instrumental in getting the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a full-blown investigation of Baltimore police, Owens said. In the week after the riot, Owens said, the group requested meetings with Justice Department officials and held separate sessions with the department’s civil rights chief, Vanita Gupta, and with Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

But Owens said it’s fair to say that such action should have come sooner, and that Baltimore clergy were previously silent on the issue of policing abuses -– even though some had experienced the problem personally. Owens himself recalled a police officer pulling him over and asking why he drove such a nice car. The Freddie Gray case has served as a wake-up call, Owens said.

“I’m glad that the alarm clock has sounded,” Owens said. “I’m the first to say that we were asleep.”…

Pastors who find the critique of co-optation too radical say another charge weighs more heavily: that they have become disengaged from the communities that surround them.

The Rev. Melvin Russell is assistant pastor at Baltimore’s New Beginnings Ministries. But his day job is as a lieutenant colonel in the Baltimore Police Department, where he leads the community partnership division. “When I was coming up,” Russell said, “the churches were community churches. We’re no longer community churches. We have devolved into commuter churches.”

And gaps between congregants and neighborhoods have political consequences, said Michael Leo Owens, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta who has studied urban black churches. “Many of the people who we could argue are most affected by some of the problems that we see with something like, say, the Baltimore Police Department are folks that are not in the pews of these churches,” he said. “So there’s this tremendous disconnect.”

Russell previously served as commander of Baltimore’s Eastern police district, where he pushed hard for residents and community leaders -– including clergy –- to engage directly with people involved in drugs and crime. His message to the church, Russell said, was that they had failed.

“You’ve can’t have a church in a community and at the same time have an open-air drug market right outside the church,” he said. “Something’s wrong with that picture as far as I’m concerned.”

The recent spate of violence has prompted actions that Russell should like: Bryant, the pastor who led last month’s highway shutdown, has announcedthat clergy and other volunteers will patrol hot spots of violence on weekend nights this summer. Bryant also promised midnight basketball tournaments and a Father’s Day march to highlight the violence.

Meanwhile, Hickman is turning Southern Baptist Church church into a center for community redevelopment, building senior housing and other amenities for his East Baltimore neighborhood.

“Politicians and bureaucrats have ignored the church as a community stakeholder and developer and looked for others to come in and save the city,” he said. “But I believe that the church is the ideal place to start with what should happen within the community.”…(more)

In the end analysis, I believe the answer is probably not. The big reason in my mind is that the Black Community in America has changed so radically (geographically, economically, and in vision). The second is that advancing Civil Rights in this day and age involves the exercise of Political power. The simple fact is, black politicians have dropped the ball largely in knee-jerk fighting flash fires, or focusing on the wrong problems. In my view the 42 black Congressmen sitting on the Hill are probably the most useless excuses for elected officials in the country. They have been utterly co-opted. I really find it hard to believe that 20% of the elected official in Congress can’t use the parliamentary tricks commonly used by Republicans to add riders to Bills which advance the cause. If there is some sort of lucid strategy there…

I certainly don’t see it.

If you go back and do some research on how the Civil Rights movement was strategized, and planned – you will  find a group of individuals who laid out a practical strategy and executed it ruthlessly. It took a lot more than organizers or politicians showing up on the front steps of 1st Baptist mouthing their slippery/slithery support.

In the end this is why I think the grass roots organizations rising up around “Black Lives Matter” are a far more effective tool.

 

American Zombies – Cadillacs and Conservatives

Cadillac had a problem about 10 years ago when it’s marketing folks finally came to the realization their buyers were dying off…

Literally.

Cadillac’s market appeal was to folks over 60 who had grown up with large American style cars, a shrinking demographic. Younger folks who had been weaned on smaller, typically foreign cars preferred the smaller size and handling characteristics of foreign luxury makes, versus the bloated floating gunboat handling common to America cars. They were much more likely to gravitate to Acura, Lexus, or Mercedes than to buy a “hog”.

The CTS was designed to attract younger buyers with style, handling, and performance competitive with foreign Luxury brands.

In response to the realization that their market was literally dying out – the company went on a crash campaign to attract younger buyers by introducing models like the CTX whose handling and performance characteristics were more in line with their foreign competitors.  Now – the company didn’t really have a change of heart as the Brobdingnagian gas guzzler SUV line proved – and their clinging to the 60’s era American maxim that more cubic inches and horsepower makes up for all design shortcomings…

But – they at least (grudgingly) are making an effort.

Which puts them far ahead of Republicans, who are facing the same market issue. Their market is white, male in their 60’s and 70’s and dying off. Not soon enough for many of us – but thank God for small favors. Their counter approach seems to be to turn their believers into Zombies – a technology which worked with some success in creating the Tea Party. Unfortunately the technical difficulty of retainng live, functioning brain cells is still beyond their reach – resulting in even bigger problems.

Case in point –

GOP problem: ‘Their voters are white, aging and dying off’

When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he’ll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

“The Republicans’ problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off,” said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

“There will come a time when they suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes.”

 

Herman Cain Perplexed When Asked About Libya: VIDEO

Herman Cain has a complete meltdown on foreign affairs questions asked about Libya. These questions are softballs to anyone who had even minimally read the public press about Libya.

Herman is a pretender.
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